Remember when Thanksgiving didn’t mean watching NFL games? Me, neither. Football on TV all day has been a Turkey Day tradition for close to 50 years.

It must feel that way to those in their 30s right now ... about Christmas and the NBA.

The NBA's dominance on Christmas came under commissioner David Stern's watch. Thanks to shrewd scheduling, it appears here to stay. (AP Photo)

This year—for the fifth straight year—five games will be played, including a rematch of last year’s NBA Finals, Thunder against Heat. Weeks before the regular-season schedule is announced in the summer, fans start speculating what teams and players will be paired off and spotlighted on Christmas.

Christmas is now a tradition and a destination for the NBA and those who follow it. The league and the holiday are married, probably forever.

For that, thank the man who is closing out his long reign with a target on his back that gets bigger with every controversial statement and action. The commissioner you love to hate, and look forward to booing at every Finals trophy presentation ... David Stern.

The NBA co-opted Christmas on his watch. This is his baby. Can’t give the credit to anyone else but him. What once seemed like a clever gimmick, then an un-subtle theft from the NFL, is now entrenched in America’s consciousness. The way football fans plan meals and travel around their games, so do basketball fans.

The non-sports fans, meanwhile, learn to grimace, gripe and even counter-attack. “You can’t get away from that TV for one minute to say hi to Grandma?” It doesn’t just happen on one holiday anymore.

It really did seem inconceivable at one time. Once upon a time, the Knicks were the Lions of Christmas. They routinely played on the holiday, but it wasn’t something the whole nation got engaged in. Every once in a while, though, it was lucky enough to be allowed to peek, such as when Bernard King went for 60 points in 1984.

The momentum the NBA built under Stern in the late-1980s and early '90s was tailor-made for a big holiday extravaganza. Bird and Magic were at their peak, Dr. J was exiting the stage and Michael Jordan was entering it, the big cities and storied franchises were eclipsing the landscape and giving the television “partners” top-notch programming.

It was a harmonic convergence, and Christmas was the perfect time to converge them all.

It’s really been refined in the last decade, though. There’s no scientific or demographic proof for this, of course, but Christmas and the NBA were likely fused forever when it wisely picked the Heat and Lakers to play on the big day in 2004. Don’t act like you don’t remember that. It was the first meeting of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal since the split of the millennium that summer.

That arguably was the first time that the initial reaction to a huge offseason move was, “They gotta put that game on Christmas, right?”

The NBA isn’t dumb. They pitted them against each other the next two Christmases, too. There was no going back after that. It’s likely no accident that among the players who have performed on Christmas the most are Kobe and Shaq, together, separately or against each other.

Ironically, the one game that everybody was dying to see on Christmas in recent history never took place. Within seconds of LeBron James’ “Decision” in the summer of 2010, the clamor arose for Miami to play its first game in Cleveland on that night.

The clamor was denied. It was Heat-Lakers, LeBron-Kobe instead. Not much of a letdown, actually. Still, the anticipation is generally as high as the quality of the game itself. That’s a sign that the game, and the concept, has a grip on the public.

There’s one sign that’s even stronger. Last year, the NBA lockout canceled the first two months of games. Fans were enraged, publicly swearing off the NBA unless it made it up to them big-time.

OK, the NBA decided. How about if we start the shortened, compressed, delayed season on Christmas—with five games, including a Finals rematch, LeBron and Miami's Big Three against the Mavericks and their banner-raising ceremony?

All was forgiven. Hard to believe the NBA would have healed the wounds by doing the same thing on some random weeknight in December or January.

They rode the Christmas magic. And why not ... they created the Christmas magic.

It’s not unanimous that it is magic, of course. No less a voice than Phil Jackson has denounced playing on Christmas, although his complaints have to always be taken with a grain of salt because of his chronic angling for some psychological angle. And, let’s not forget, his teams played pretty much every single year he coached, either in Chicago or LA, so he was entitled to want the occasional holiday off.

On the other hand, what the NBA once copied from the NFL, the NHL now copies from the NBA. (When it actually plays) The NHL is now occupying New Year’s Day, with the annual Winter Classic outdoor game, and it works beautifully for them.

That date still is synonymous with college football, though, and it’s an uphill battle. Once upon a time, though, Christmas with the NBA was an uphill battle. Not any more. Not this year. Not for five games and more than 12 hours.

Stern isn’t exactly going out on a high note. But on this creation, give him his due.